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Jojo
Married to music; we're in a poly relationship though.
Jojo Tully @Jojo

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Joined on 8/11/21

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What to do about a picky cat?

Posted by Jojo - 4 hours ago

So I have taken notice that Lucy (my cat) has been VERY picky about what she wants to eat. The first night she came to my house, I gave her a turkey slice as it was the most edible thing for cats that I could give her at the time (which she ate), but she seems very picky about what she wants to eat now. I even experimented and tried to give her another turkey slice, but no dice. I've been able to get her to eat a bit through coercion, like pretending to enjoy the food while standing up and "accidentally" dropping some, but otherwise she doesn't seem to be eating enough. I've been feeding her 9-lives as it was the least expensive wet cat food I could buy her without carrageenan (a cancer-causing ingredient for cats) in it. What could I try?


Could it be that she is adjusting to a new environment and will eventually be alright?

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CrimsonKero

I've just used regular old ham. Works fine.

Jojo

I take it I will have to get a natural ham without any kind of salt or preservatives? I read those things can be bad for cats, and I already really care about her. Hehe~

CrimsonKero

@Jojo Research different brands of ham at either your local supermarket or nearest butcher.
Try to find different types / brands that balances both taste and a low sodium.

And if you have enough, make yourself a ham sandwich to celebrate.

Jojo

I will look into it. Thank you. :)

Yatsufusa

I'm not a veterinarian. The best person to address about this for detailed feedback would be the 'animal officer' you talked to originally - as they are most familiar with these cases and will have insights that can go beyond what a regular veterinarian might see in a lifetime.

From personal experience I can tell you a few things:
1) Cats get picky. As soon as you feed them "slightly better food" even once, they will "go diva" immediately and will only accept "lesser food" slowly and begrudgingly.
Keep in mind that the turkey slice you gave Her Majesty yesterday was fresher yesterday than it was today. That might already be it.

2) If she only chews once and mews at you in protest afterwards she might have a tooth ache. To a cat, the most logical explanation in such a case is that the food or the location is at fault.

3) She might just be careful. She's with you for about 3 days now. Maybe she was famished enough to not care originally.

4) Cats are 'intentionally mysterious'. I could _not_ "psychoanalyze a _cat_" - let alone do it 'remotely'. I can ping 3 people on NG for you who I "strongly suspect" to be either 'cat-whisperers' or cats. In alphabetical order, these are:
@ADR3-N
@CatGuard
@SouSTAR

Jojo

The thing that makes me think she's okay with her new environment is that she's been sleeping soundly on her personal bed I made for her as well as actually sleeping right next to me the whole night last night on my bed. So it's almost gotta be what you said about her just not immediately liking the lesser food I'm giving her. It's likely she could eventually succumb to the cat food as she has proven that she will eat when she is genuinely hungry with the turkey slice.

SouSTAR

I don't have a cats, and have no experience with cats sadly, but maybe your presence have something with it? does she stop eating the second you go elsewhere? Or maybe she prefer to eat alone in a room?

Maybe the place the first time you fed her changed? Do you always feed her in the same room? Maybe it's better to feed her in the same room/place you originally fed her

@Yatsufusa make great points, and seeking out a veterinarian or an animal officer (i don't know what is an animal officer (っ´ω｀c) ) is always the better choice!

Yatsufusa

@SouSTAR "You know... an 'animal officer'":
https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/tanooki/flint-lockton
;3

To be perfectly honest, I never heard of them before reading this post:
https://jojo.newgrounds.com/news/post/1533567
...but I can extrapolate. Most likely Jojo's area is seeing a lot of strays and/or animal related crime*, so they have a small team of underpaid people dedicated to dealing with animals. Or it's just a fancy word for "person who works at the animal shelter".

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au_tL122R6g

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